Chapter 152: Occupant I

Danny took the napkin and put it in his inside pocket with the pad.

Her rent book’s in Jodie’s drawer with her nan’s buttons. Jodie said she’d take it back herself.

So it’s Wednesday at 6, and it’s both of them on Adaeze’s doorstep, unless you sort it today.

"Kieran. The man yesterday. Can I see what you wrote?"

Kieran turned the desk diary round and put his finger on the line.

Mon 15:58. Male, 50s, grey suit no tie, lanyard reversed. Read directory. Asked which flat FLYNN. Declined, resident privacy. Left 16:01. No name given. K.

"He read the board top to bottom first," Kieran said. "Like he was ticking something off." He moved his finger down. "And Ms Adeyemi’s put a line under mine."

17:55. Returned. Asked for NA by name. Card left. NA.

"She’s in at 8," Kieran said.

It was 7:10. He’d shaken on same day, so Danny texted Jodie from the lift.

In. Man asked for me at the desk yesterday 4pm. Didn’t give a name. Seeing Naomi at 8. Adaeze left a letter, wants her rent book back Weds 6.

It came back before he got to 40.

Same day. Good. Ring me after Naomi.

The flat was the way he’d left it on Saturday night. The bath was drained and the towel was still on the floor, with the 2 mugs on the island. He stood in the living room over Mara’s ceiling and was careful where he put his feet.

Who reads a board top to bottom and asks for one name?

The bank? Mara says banks don’t come to buildings.

Priya’s not sending anybody. She writes on Friday.

Stephen Hale’s lot? Gill saw my face, but nobody in that house had my name. Hannah only got Danny.

Naomi’s letter went at 9 yesterday. And a man turns up at 4 and reads the board.

He plugged his phone in, put on a clean shirt, and at 8:02 he knocked on the glass of Naomi Adeyemi’s office.

She looked up through the window and opened the door.

"It is Tuesday," she said. "You may come in."

She was in the charcoal, cut close, with her hair up and pinned hard and the thin gold chain in the notch of her throat. There was a black coffee on the desk with lipstick on the rim. She shut the door and stayed standing with her back to it.

"You want to know about the man."

"Kieran says he came back at 6 and asked for you."

"At 5 to 6, by name." She went round the desk and took a white card out of the top drawer and put it down in front of him. "He gave me this."

GRAHAM PETTIT. FIELD INVESTIGATIONS. A phone number, and the building insurer’s name in small grey type under it.

"He’s from the insurer."

"He says he is. So at 7 last night I rang the insurer’s switchboard, from the number on our policy, not the one on his card." Naomi sat down. "They have a Graham Pettit. Field investigations. And I asked him to put his request in writing to me before he spoke to any resident of mine. It came in at 6 this morning."

She turned her screen round. A short email. Request to verify occupancy, Flat 40, following withdrawal of Section 4 declaration. To be arranged directly with the occupant.

"Why was his lanyard turned round?"

"They do that in lobbies. They do not want residents knowing an insurer is in the building." She turned the screen back. "When a declaration is withdrawn on a unit above a certain value, they verify in person. They come and see whether the person is there."

"What did you tell him?"

"What I can stand behind." She folded her hands on the desk. "That flat 40 is occupied. That the occupant’s name is on the board as of yesterday, at his own request. That I have seen the occupant in the lift, the lobby and this office, on dates I can give from the diary."

"And?"

"And he asked whether I had ever seen any document putting you anywhere before the 11th of October." She did not look away. "I said I had seen a filing that turned out not to exist, and that this is in my letter."

She’s told him a man in a lift and nothing past it.

"What does he want with me?"

"10 minutes at the flat. Identification. A look at how you live." Naomi’s mouth went thin. "Clothes in the wardrobes. Post on the side. Food in the fridge. He asked whether the flat looked lived in. I said I had not been inside it since I delivered an envelope."

2 mugs, a toaster and a towel on the floor.

And ￡2.80. You couldn’t fill the fridge for him if you wanted to.

And you don’t want to. You’re not dressing a flat for a man who’s come to see if you’re real.

"Can I keep this?"

"I have the number. Take it." She looked at him across the desk. "Mr Flynn. Ring him yourself, today. Before he rings me again."

He was on the pavement at 8:15 with the card in his hand and buses going over the bridge.

Ring now and he picks the time. Work out first what you can give him, and you pick it.

Wednesday at 6 is Adaeze. Thursday’s 6 till 10 somewhere in London. Thursday at 25 to 2 is Pat, and Ray after. Friday’s Priya.

And Thursday at 25 to 2, Deniz has your key.

He rang Deniz.

"I’m up a trestle," Deniz said. "Is it money?"

"No. It’s Pat. Old lady with a trolley, comes to the shop every Thursday at 25 to 2. I’ve got to tell her something on Thursday and you’ve got my door."

"So you want me to let her in."

"And give her somewhere to sit."

"She can have a bucket with a dust sheet on it." A trowel went round a bucket. "Second coat’s on and it’s flat. Thursday night, I give you the key and you give me the money."

"I’ll have it, or I’ll tell you to your face why I haven’t."

"Is it still stopped?"

"Yes. I asked the bank for living money. They’ve not answered."

"Then on Thursday night I come and stand in front of you with my hand out," Deniz said, "and if there’s nothing in it, the key stays in my pocket, and so does your shop." He rang off.

Danny spent the morning at the island in flat 40 with the pad, writing the day down the way his mother had told him, and at half 1 he rode to Battersea.

Jodie opened her door at 2 with a pencil through her hair and a tape measure round her neck, in grey leggings and a vest with no bra under it, and pins in her mouth.

She took the pins out.

"It’s my day off since Marie cut me, and I’ve 2 hems to do," she said. "If you’ve come for the rent book, you’re not having it."

"I’ve come to ask you for it."

"I know. Come in and be told no properly."

The front room was warm with the iron on and the radio low. There were 3 finished dresses on the rail now, covered. A fourth lay on the drop-leaf table under the window, deep green, with chalk on the hem. The table was new since Sunday, off a woman in Clapham for ￡15. She’d been cutting on her knees on the rug for a month and her knees were bruised from it.

"How was Naomi?"

"He’s real. Naomi rang the insurer’s switchboard herself to check, and got him to put it in writing." He gave her the card. "He wants 10 minutes in the flat with my ID. He’ll look at the wardrobes and the fridge."

"There’s nothing in your fridge."

"There’s 4 fish fingers. I left them here last night."

"I ate them for my breakfast."

Jodie looked at him over the card.

"He’ll write that down."

"Naomi said he would." He sat on the arm of the settee. "And the bit I didn’t put in the text. The agent in Margate remembered the man who signed for the company that sold Adaeze Pembury. He signed in a name that wasn’t on any of the paperwork. She’ll only tell me it in person."

"So she’s using her own rent book to get you round there."

"Or she won’t leave a name on a desk where people read things. That’s what she told Kieran."

"Both," Jodie said. "She’s clever." She turned the tape measure over in her fingers. "I said I’d take it back to her myself. Through my chain on Sunday night. I said I wanted to meet the woman who sent you home with pudding."

"You did."

"So I’m coming on Wednesday."

Adaeze, who said she wasn’t being the third woman in your weekend. In her own kitchen, with Jodie, on a Wednesday.

Is that fair on Adaeze?

"I’m ringing her first," Danny said. "She invited me. I’m not walking you in on her."

"Then ring her."